Thursday, September 22, 2005

13 To 5 In Favor Of John Roberts

The Senate Judiciary committee voted 13 to 5 for John Roberts. The full Senate is scheduled to vote next week.Democratic senators who voted in favor of Roberts are reported to be Leahy, Kohl and Feingold.CNN:

The stakes become greater with the next nominee. The conservative Roberts would replace Rehnquist, a reliably conservative vote on the court.

O'Connor has been one of the court's swing voters on affirmative action, abortion, campaign finance, discrimination and death penalty cases. Replacing her could give the president a chance to swing the court to the right on many issues.

Democratic support for Roberts has upset some liberal interest groups. Ralph Neas, head of People for the American Way, on Wednesday called Leahy's decision "inexplicable and deeply disappointing."

DU (excoriating Feingold, language). DU also discusses term limits for Supreme Court judges, which would require a constitutional amendment.

President Bush’s nominee to the Supreme Court to replace Sandra Day O’Connor appeared to be skating on thin ice Wednesday, even though the president hasn’t yet revealed who the nominee is.

...Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid and other Democrats were signaling Wednesday that the filibuster — extended debate in order to kill a nomination — is an option they might use....Lieberman said Roberts was “a mainstream nominee. But because of the focus on the balance on the court and Justice O’Connor being a mainstream conservative, if the next nominee is not a mainstream conservative, then a filibuster is definitely possible.”

Personally, I think it would be classier to wait until someone had actually been suggested. Still, they do have the right to attempt a filibuster - and the majority of the Senate has the right to change the rules to disallow it.

Tommy, that would be a Maine stream. I think it was in the CNN article that they had Dianne Feinstein saying that she could not, "in good conscious", vote for Roberts. Heehee.

SC&A, I'm still enjoying the reason Feinstein gave. She said she knew no more about Roberts than when she started questioning him. Perhaps she should have worried less about toads and 20 year-old asides about housewives and more about his judicial philosophy. I think that makes her at least a colonel in the idiot brigade.